Continuing
the Minstrel's Tale down along the Costa BlancaThe events portrayed in this
series are not necessarily in chronological order

When I left Kenton last year, I told Stan
that I had to get off the road for good.
Stan didn't understand. He's one
of those rare birds that can exist happily
out of a suitcase. He thrives on
bus exhaust.Milt Bernhart

Chapter Twenty-eight

Cat and Dog

February 2005

Over the past few months I've been writing some saxophone
quartet pieces for Dave Allenby up in Darlington. I asked him recently
whether they had ever performed any of them before a live audience, and,
if so, how they were received. He sent me this picture. Click
the pic to enlarge

Of course, animals are always fascinated by musical
sounds. I remember the wartime bandleader Jack Jackson, who later in life
appeared as a solo act in many variety shows all over Britain. Jack used
to bring a dog on stage with him and play the trumpet. The dog threw its
head back and howled pitifully throughout the concerto, turning it into
a duet. This had the entire audience in stitches and as far as I can recall
that was the best part of the act.

My cats are usually very interested when I play the
trumpet, and show a distinct affinity for the Harmon mute. The muted buzzing
sound seems to hold all the attractions for them of Nepeta cataria,
or Catnip inaural form. It does for my Kartäuser
Igor, at any rate. He was brought back from Gröningen as a child
fifteen years ago and given to me for my birthday. This race of cats is
well-known to be frivolous in the extreme and Igor is no exception. Since
he arrived here he has never been known to purr, doesn't like to be touched
and will tolerate being picked up for a good two seconds before fighting
his way free. The only part of him I am allowed to touch is his tail,
and he will graciously sit with his back to me from time to time to allow
me to hold it.

Of an evening, though, Igor sits in front of my chair
and stares at me. He does so unblinkingly and is prepared to go on like
this for hours. It is very difficult to enjoy a television programme,
or, indeed, any leisure occupation if your cat is sitting staring at you
like that. I know what he wants, though, because Igor is a masochist.
He likes nothing better than to be walloped on the backside with a rolled-up
magazine and will go into hysterics, running around twisting, spitting
and screaming if this is properly applied, only to return when one stops,
take up position, and resume staring.

One of his other many idiosyncrasies is his morning
paddle. First thing in the morning, or, indeed, whenever I go into the
kitchen to make a pot of tea he is up there, beside the sink, waiting
for his dip. Nothing one does can dissuade him from this. Even the proximity
of the boiling kettle does not deter him. I have to put about a quarter
of an inch of water in the sink and leave. He won't do anything if I'm
watching him but I cheated a few times to see what he does.

He gets down into the sink with his front paws and spends
a good five minutes just staring at the water in amazement. Then he tries
it a few times with his nose, has a little taste, before scratching and
paddling away with delight like a kid at the seaside. When he finally
leaves the area he takes a trail of watery footprints
with him. The only way he seems to be able to get back to our fireside
in order to resume his staring-at-Ron position involves coming over the
back of the couch and placing one wet paw on my shoulder before leaping
down. This is the long way around but he does it every time.

Taking Igor to the vet used to be a nightmare, trying
my patience, and my vocabulary, to the limit. Come here you little
bugger, I used to shout at him, until one day the vet, a charming
young German lady called Frau Bachman suddenly said, He's not a little
bugger. This surprised me no end, as it was the first time I'd ever
heard her speak English. It had a profound effect upon Igor, too, for,
from this day on, he was as good as gold whenever we visited that particular
vet.

He is sitting at the moment on the desk beside my monitor,
staring at me with those enormous orange eyes. Now where did I put that
rolled-up magazine...?

Don Rader recently sent me Ralph Pyl's
new CD Pyldriver. You can read about it in the CD
Reviews section. The Sydney All Star Big Band is world-class
and it has made me want to emigrate there. I have contacts and friends
all over Australia and they are telling me constantly what a wonderful
place it is. An added incentive, at this time of year, is to look at the
temperatures there on television: Perth, for instance, hovers around the
32 C mark.

I met Graham the other day in the Benidorm
Cisne market, first time I've seen him since he sang that wonderful version
of All Blues at Eric Delaney's 80th birthday party there. (See
Chapter Seventeen for that.)
I knew he'd had some pretty serious operations some time back so I asked
him how he was.

"I've just had a hip replacement",
he said.

"Fell over, did you?"

"No," said Graham, "It's
the result of too much sport when I was younger."

I looked at him for a moment. Medium build,
white hair, white beard, a lovely man, great cook, good singer - but sport?

"What kind of sport?" I said
finally. Then he started.

Motor racing, first, sports cars, rallies,
hill-climbing, safaris, the lot. Then motor bike racing until he had the
nasty accident. After that powerboat racing, very bumpy that is, and competition
water-skiing.

"Skydiving?" I asked. After all
that I wouldn't have been at all surprised. "No, I didn't try that
one," said Graham. "But all that vibration, not to mention the
crashes - well they wear out your bones after a while. Wore out the old
hip bone anyway. Good as new now."

I thought about all the people who'd suffered
through their involvement with sport - Johnny Weissmuller, who played
Tarzan in so many films, is a good example; he ended up in a wheelchair.
Wore his bones right out. When asked how he'd managed to live to such
a ripe old age Winston Churchill is reported to have answered, "No
sport." Graham had got off lightly. And yes, just as I thought -
he had made up those words to All Blues himself. He'd seen Joe
Williams do it once and had been impressed enough to try it himself. Did
a great job of it too, give him the chequered flag for that.

My nephew Eros down in Johannesburg has
just spent a week in Mozambique. Here's what he wrote:

Briene and Judith have left again on
Saturday after a really stunning week in Mozambique.
We had great weather, calm ocean, great scuba diving and of course superb
company.
Lots to see underwater as well as on the beach. The view is magnificent
and the wildlife abundant.
We saw rays, dolphins, sharks, lion fish, sea turtles etc etc. too much
to mention.
Picked up a nice tan and some extra kilos from all the sea food. Great
prawns!! Briene and I had kilos of those :-)

Briene is Eros's older brother, Judith is Briene's wife. They live on
a wonderfully converted barge moored by their own island near Amsterdam,
travel the world scuba-diving. Eros and his wife Anina are studying to
be safari rangers. Here in sunny Spain the thermometer on my terrace has
halted its downward plunge at zero. A couple of weeks ago we had snow,
first time since 1981. What am I doing here?